Bonk: The Curious Coupling of Science and Sex
by Mary Roach
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Book Summary Information
Author: Mary RoachEdition: Hardcover
Audio: English (Original Language); English (Unknown); English (Published)
Published: 2008-04-07
ISBN: 0393064646
Number of pages: 288
Publisher: W. W. Norton
Book Reviews of Bonk: The Curious Coupling of Science and Sex
Book Review: Interesting, but a little scattershot (3.5 *s)
Summary: 3 Stars
The author in this book basically researches sex researchers and their work: sexual anatomy, function, and response. She does this with certain misgivings, as sex research, even in modern times, has largely had to fly under the radar. Researchers often have to battle insinuations that they "enjoy" their work just a bit too much.
She travels widely to investigate any number of relevant topics. The subjects are both human and animal; and the use of a variety of technologies from MRIs, ultrasound, and personal devices receives attention. A major focus of the author is on the understanding and overcoming of sexual dysfunction, ranging well beyond recent obsessions with ED.
She does all of this with understated humor, even volunteering herself and her husband for some not-so-discreet ultrasound imaging. The book is definitely not without merit and is interesting, but it is scattershot - a little bit of this, a little bit of that. It tends to bounce along the surface alternating among the scenario, equipment, the science, the researcher, the participant, etc. More focus and organization are needed, but is still a pretty good contribution to a field that seemingly cannot be discussed forthrightly in the pseudo moralistic US.
Summary of Bonk: The Curious Coupling of Science and Sex
The best-selling author of Stiff turns her outrageous curiosity and infectious wit on the most alluring scientific subject of all: sex.The study of sexual physiology-what happens, and why, and how to make it happen better-has been a paying career or a diverting sideline for scientists as far-ranging as Leonardo da Vinci and James Watson. The research has taken place behind the closed doors of laboratories, brothels, MRI centers, pig farms, sex-toy R&D labs, and Alfred Kinsey's attic.
Mary Roach, "the funniest science writer in the country" (Burkhard Bilger of The New Yorker), devoted the past two years to stepping behind those doors. Can a person think herself to orgasm? Can a dead man get an erection? Is vaginal orgasm a myth? Why doesn't Viagra help women-or, for that matter, pandas? In Bonk, Roach shows us how and why sexual arousal and orgasm, two of the most complex, delightful, and amazing scientific phenomena on earth, can be so hard to achieve and what science is doing to slowly make the bedroom a more satisfying place. 16 illustrations.
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